


Peace in His Celestial Heights

by Rogue_Bard



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 10:19:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16448012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogue_Bard/pseuds/Rogue_Bard
Summary: It's been a year since Haven Rock, and it's time to remember that.





	Peace in His Celestial Heights

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a really hard couple of days. When something like this happens, it's hard to know how to respond. Eleven people are dead, because of the hate in this world that is targeted at my family, my friends, and my larger faith community. 
> 
> But we are still here. We stand together. We honor those who have died, we bless their memories, and we continue to live. We continue to write and create. We are still here, and we are not going anywhere. 
> 
> To anyone reading this who knows someone who was killed, ha’makom yenahem etkhem betokh she’ar avelei Tziyonvi’ Yerushalayim. I love you, I stand with you, and our community will get through this together.

Rory walked up the sidewalk in the twilight. Once, he would have been afraid to be out alone in the growing dark in this part of town, but now the darkness was his friend. In the shadows, the Ragman was the one people were afraid of, whether he liked it or not. There weren’t many ways to not look intimidating when you resembled something out of a horror film. Which, if nothing else, made walking down the street looking like a normal person pleasantly refreshing. Curtis and Rene knew he was coming back, they had been talking about it in their GroupMe chat for the past week (that chat was one of the only useful things to come out of Curtis convincing Rory to get a smart phone). But he wanted to speak with Felicity in person.

Rory had once had trouble putting a finger on the kinship he felt with Felicity. He wanted very much to hate her, when he found out about Haven Rock. But the more he heard of the story, the more he watched her, and the more he worked with Team Arrow, the more he came to realize that he couldn’t hate her. He saw that sometimes there really wasn’t a better choice. Sometimes, you couldn’t save everyone. If it had been a choice she made just to save herself, he never would have been able to forgive her. But when your only choices were a town of under 20,000 and a city of over 500,000, you had to save as many people as you could. It broke his heart. But whenever he started to feel like he was drowning in the grief, he went to a park in Star City and just sat for a bit. Watched the children. Watched the teenage couples making out and eating ice cream. Watched the old folks playing chess. And remembered that they were all only there by the grace of G-d, and because of the sacrifice of Haven Rock.

Once he had made his peace with that, he began to realize how nice it was to have another Jewish person in a small and otherwise non-Jewish friend group. It was funny, because initially he hadn’t even known that Felicity was Jewish. She had barely been to temple since her Bat Mitzvah, and she was Reform, where he was more Conservative leaning towards Modern Orthodox. But she’d started practicing more, since he’d been around talking about things. She’d even come with him to temple this past Yom Kippur. He remembered a conversation they had had, shortly before he left, about feeling ‘fake’ in her observance. Felicity was worrying that because she didn’t practice consistently, anything she did was somehow mocking people who were ‘real Jewish Jews’, like him. That discussion had taken them well into the night, and by the next morning, he felt that they both understood each other better.

He had half hoped she would call, the previous month. There had been a small service at the shul Rory now attended in the next town over from Star City, one year since the terrible tragedy of Haven Rock. But he knew how things got. Even if she’d been thinking about it, she’d probably been busy saving the city. Again.

As he approached her apartment building, Rory lookup up at the loft’s windows. A flickering glow came from them, larger and brighter than the fireplace would have made. His breath quickened, fearing a house fire, before he registered that the flickering was too consistent for that. But then what- Suddenly a thought hit him. It had been a leap year in the Jewish calendar, when Haven Rock was destroyed. The memorial he had attended had aligned with that calendar, which meant that things had shifted back in relationship to the mainstream calendar. And today would be- Rory quickened his steps towards Felicity’s loft.  


* * *

 

Felicity lit another five candles before the match gave out. _May their memories be a blessing._ She’d been fretting about this day for months, knowing she needed to do something, but unable to land on what felt right. What were you supposed to do, when you’d killed thousands of people, and no one realized it? How did she have any right to honor these people, lives that she had chosen to end? Eventually she had decided that mourning was for the living, and if she were by herself, there was no one to judge how she mourned.

As she went to the counter to grab another book of matches, there was a knock at the door. Couldn’t the boys ever listen? She had told them that she was taking the night off. Going to the door, she poked her head out instead of opening it. She didn’t need anyone else in her place tonight.

“Rory?” Her train of thought stuttered to a halt “What- I mean- Welcome back? I-” Her brain clicked back on with a vengeance, and she drew in a sharp breath. “I would think I’m the last person you’d want to see, today.”

Rory’s face twisted, and he didn’t pretend to not know what she meant.

“Oh, I don’t know” he said “I think if there’s anyone I want to be with today, it’s you. May I come in?”

And what else could she say to that?

Opening the door, she let Rory into the soft glow coming from her apartment. There was a light on over the stove, but beyond that, the entire place was lit only with the yahrzeit candles. They covered every surface. She had bought out three different online shops and four supermarkets to get this many.

“I figured one for every ten. If I had one for everyone I’d set off the sprinklers, for sure. So I just thought-” she trailed off as Rory laid a hand on top of hers. It wasn’t until he did that Felicity realized they were shaking, more out of stress then frantic gesticulation.

“How many more do you need to light?” He asked gently.

“Only another 80. I have the exact right amount, 1,790, so anything you see that’s not lit, it can be-” cutting herself off, Felicity took a deep breath, then handed Rory a matchbook, and went over to begin lighting the remaining candles.

They worked in silence for a few minutes, filling the last corner of the loft with light.

Standing side by side, the pair surveyed their handiwork. Rory draped an arm over Felicity’s shoulders, and she leaned into him. Taking a deep breath, Felicity began to speak. She would get this right. She’d been memorizing it just for this.

“ _Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba…_ ”


End file.
